During one of his medical school rotations in Idaho, my husband received a great piece of advice from a very experienced rural physician. He said to have a successful practice you have to be “affable, available, and able” and by far the least important is “able”. Interesting perspective from a doctor.
I was reminded of the “Triple A” speech upon reading Kevin Kelly’s riff about free. Highly recommended. I love his paragraph about trust…
“There are a number of qualities that can’t be copied. Consider “trust.” Trust cannot be copied. You can’t purchase it. Trust must be earned, over time. It cannot be downloaded. Or faked. Or counterfeited (at least for long). If everything else is equal, you’ll always prefer to deal with someone you can trust. So trust is an intangible that has increasing value in a copy saturated world.”
Customers usually forgive you for “ability” mistakes – everyone makes them. However, they rarely forgive you for not returning phone calls or being rude.